


Date Night

by ashavahishta



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-30
Updated: 2012-07-30
Packaged: 2017-11-12 12:18:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashavahishta/pseuds/ashavahishta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry and Louis try to have a night in, but everything seems to go wrong.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Date Night

 

 

  
On one of Louis' last days in Nice, one of the days where he felt frustrated and angry and sad, Harry had let his voice go low and soothing when they were on the phone together. “Hey,” he'd said placatingly. “How about when you get home we'll have a date night, just you and me? I'll cook, we'll have some wine, watch a dvd?”

“Make out on the couch and then have fantastic date night sex?” Louis adds with a smile in his voice.

“Of course,” Harry says, like this was a foregone conclusion.

“Sounds perfect.”

They don't get around to having their little night immediately; too absorbed in being back together again. A few days later, though, it seems like the perfect time for it. They're relaxing on the couches in the studio that afternoon when Harry turns his head into Louis' neck and says, “Hey boo, you wanna do our date night tonight?”

“Oooh, date night!” Niall teases with a lewd wink. “You gonna put out then, Lou?”

Louis smacks him with a pillow and Niall just laughs. “Not that it's any of your business, Niall,” he says loftily. “But I always put out.” He smiles winningly when Harry murmurs a happy, “Yeah you do,” and kisses his throat.

“Eurgh, no, that really wasn't any of his business. Or mine,” Liam pipes up, but he smiles a moment later. “Really though, that sounds great. Are you going to a restaurant or something?”

Niall looks up expectantly. They've made a habit in the past of asking one of the other boys to be their third wheel for the evening when they go on dates. It really helps with the fan scrutiny and it keeps management off their backs.

“Nah,” Louis says easily. “Thought we'd give Nialler the night off. We're just staying in, watching a movie and that. Harry's gonna cook.”

“Cute,” Zayn comments without looking up from his phone. “Hey Haz, if you make dessert you better save me some, yeah? That chocolate thing you did last time was epic.”

Harry grins proudly. “Sure.”

“I've got some great wine at home if you want it,” Liam offers. “I bought it for Dani and I the night I got home but...well, we didn't really get around to drinking it.” His ears tinge pink.

“O-ho!” Niall yells with a thrilled grin. “So Lou's not the only one putting out then.”

“Shut up, Ni,” Liam mutters, reaching out to muss his fingers roughly through Niall's hair.

“Wine'd be great, Li,” Harry responds. “I haven't had a chance to get any for us yet.”

“Just don't drink it all and pass out before I can even get your clothes off,” Louis warns. “That was embarrassing, that was.”

The other boys all burst into laughter, teasing Harry loudly and he squirms with his face pressed into Louis' shoulder. “One time!” he yells, muffled. “It was just the one time!”

Louis gets his arms around him, always a little extra cuddly after he's managed to embarrass Harry. It's a mixture of pride at himself and fondness for the way Harry reacts, he thinks. Something about making Harry blush and stutter and squirm is so addictive and Louis does it all the time now. Harry never seems to mind.

“The one time you did _that_ ,” Louis concedes graciously. “But you've done a lot of funny shit when you're drunk, sunshine. Remember trying to jump in the river in Melbourne?”

“I forgot about that!” Zayn says gleefully. “No, the best one was that club in Sweden, remember?”

“Didn't he want to swap shoes with me?”

“No, I think that was at your birthday...”

“I hate you all,” Harry mutters with a petulant little frown. Louis just laughs and tightens his arms around Harry's shoulders.

“Liar.”

 

Harry decides on a simple meal of steak and vegetables, with a mushroom sauce he's been meaning to try making for awhile now. He sets up their large kitchen just the way he likes it – ipod in the dock, streaming loud enough for him to sing along under his breath, ingredients spread neatly over the benches. Harry settles into his groove as he cleans and chops vegetables, pleased at the thought of the night ahead.

He's peeling potatoes over the sink, bouncing slightly in time to the music, when arms suddenly wrap around his waist from behind and Harry startles, dropping a potato with a loud splash. Louis laughs and squeezes in even tighter, craning up to press a kiss to Harry's neck.

“Hi,” Louis breathes and his fingers trace light patterns over Harry's stomach through his shirt. He's warm, all pressed against Harry's back like this, and Harry smiles despite his still-racing heart.

“Hi,” he replies, and twists his head for a soft kiss hello. “God, you scared the hell out of me.”

“Sorry,” Louis says, and props his chin on Harry's shoulder to look into the sink. “Mash?” he asks hopefully.

“I was thinking of roasting them with some rosemary,” Harry says. “But I can do mash if you like.”

“I like mash,” Louis says decisively, and Harry wonders if they have any cream in their fridge.

Louis hops up onto one of the empty counters while Harry finishes his potatoes, chattering happily about the rest of his day in the studio. He kicks his heels lightly against the cupboards beneath him as he talks, like an impatient six year old. Harry finds it terribly endearing, even as he secretly frowns at the scuffing on his cupboard doors. Louis also reaches over to turn down Harry's music and Harry has to roll his eyes a bit; music taste is one of the only things they ever disagree on.

 

Everything is going just fine until Louis decides he wants to help. This is always dangerous – Louis' not a _terrible_ cook, but he's easily distracted and impatient, and he doesn't pay attention to detail. He'll happily wander off while something boils on the stove, or forget to add key ingredients to something and wonder why it tastes wrong. He keeps saying he will learn to cook properly, someday, but right now he doesn't really need to, since they live off room service and venue catering 90% of the time. 'Besides,' he'll say, 'why would I need to know how to cook when I have Harry?' and Harry can't argue with that, too thrilled with Louis' certainty that he'll never be without Harry and his cooking.

“Just let me do something,” Louis wheedles now. “Just something little so I don't feel like you've done this entire night yourself.”

“You brought the wine!”

“Liam gave us the wine.”

“Okay...you brought the dvd?”

“Ooh, so romantic,” Louis says. “C'mon, just one thing.”

Harry looks around the kitchen, thinking. The vegetables are steaming, the potatoes are already mashed and seasoned, and he's already prepared everything he needs for the steak and the mushroom sauce. It's a risk, but...

“Alright,” Harry concedes. “You can try and do this mushroom sauce while I get the steaks going. It's all ready to go and the instructions are right there, I got them from my mum.”

Louis perks up, hopping off the bench and grabbing for the sheet of paper with the handwritten recipe on it. “You won't regret this.”

 

 

Harry regrets it.

He doesn't even know _how_ it goes so wrong, how Louis manages to burn the mushrooms, how he's used so much oil that the cream splits from it immediately, how the whole mess of it boils over the pan and onto the stove when Louis' not looking. Louis yelps in pain as he tries to move the hot pan off the stove and oil splashes onto his wrist, and Harry has to jump to help. They're trying to clean up that mess, sauce slopping all over the stove and Louis whimpering quietly about his burn, when the smoke alarm goes off and Harry realises he's abandoned his steaks and they're burning to a crisp.

It's a mess of smoke and noise and the acrid smell of burnt meat filling the air until Harry yells 'stop!' and pushes Louis away from the stove. He turns off everything he can reach, switches the overhead fan on and opens a window to try to clear the smoke. Louis is still trying to wipe up the sauce that's splattered all over the counter and Harry makes an impatient noise. “Leave it, Lou,” he says, and wraps his hand around Louis' arm, tugging him toward the sink. “Let me see your wrist.”

There's a splotch of angry pink skin on the inside of Louis' arm where he burned himself, and Harry holds it gently beneath a stream of cold water as he looks around their disaster of a kitchen. The smoke alarm has stopped blaring, thankfully, but there's still smoke hanging in the air and mess everywhere.

It's not exactly the perfect meal Harry had been going for.

Louis is appropriately contrite about ruining their dinner, murmuring apologies and trying to do all the cleaning up himself. “It's my fault,” he insists, grabbing for a wet cloth before Harry can. “Let me fix it.”

“It's okay,” Harry says, and he's not mad, not really, just disappointed. “I don't mind, okay, let's just clean up and get on with our night.”

“Just let me clean it up, Haz, you made us this lovely dinner and I ruined it all, god,” Louis is mad at himself, biting his lip and shifting anxiously. Then his arm brushes against and he winces, hissing in a breath through his teeth. Harry sighs and moves forward to take the dirty cloth gently from Louis' hand. “Louis. Stop trying to clean up and go find some burn gel for your arm, okay? I'll clean up.”

Louis' shoulders slump as he admits defeat and he leans up to press a kiss to Harry's cheek. “I really am sorry.”

“I know,” Harry smiles, trying to show him that it's really not the end of the world. “Go on then.”

 

They order pizza in the end, and put the dvd on while they wait for it to show up.

The dvd skips.

“Oh my god, are you kidding?” Louis asks impatiently, lifting his head from where it was resting on Harry's shoulder. They're only ten minutes into the new Sherlock Holmes film, the one they didn't have time to see when it was in the cinemas, the one they've both been looking forward to. It's paused itself on Robert Downey Jr's face, twisted comically.

“I got it,” Harry says, getting up. He does everything he can think of to fix the dvd; cleaning it, restarting it, pausing and playing, but it absolutely refuses to work.

“At least we still have the wine?”

The wine is awful, because Liam doesn't drink wine and probably picked the prettiest bottle he saw and assumed it would taste good. Louis nearly spits out his first sip, so Harry goes back into the kitchen to throw it away and comes back carrying two glasses of milk instead.

“Milk?” Louis asks sceptically, and Harry shrugs. “It's all we've got.”

So instead of a lovely dinner, with wine and a good film to watch, Harry and Louis get this:

They eat pizza on the sofa with napkins for plates, drinking milk and watching shitty game shows because there's nothing else on TV. Louis still has burn gel smeared on his wrist and their entire apartment smells of smoke.

 

But it's still...it's still good, Harry muses to himself as they demolish the last slice of pizza and Louis puts Iron Man on because he's 'in a Robert Downey Jr mood.' They've both seen it a million times, but it's one of those films they're both happy to watch a million times more.

It's still good, because Harry's warm and full of food and comfortable stretched out on his back on their big squashy couch. Louis takes up his favourite spot, sprawled all along Harry's front with his cheek resting against Harry's chest and their feet tangled together. They fit together so perfectly like this – Harry loves that he can slip his hand under Louis' shirt to rest his palm against the soft, warm skin at the small of his back, fit his fingertips into the dimples at the base of his spine. He loves that he can dip his head and smell Louis' hair or kiss his forehead, and he loves the way Louis traces shapes on Harry's skin when he gets bored. It's so peaceful and he's never more content than when they're like this; quiet and close and completely wrapped up in each other.

Maybe later they will make out on the couch and have awesome date night sex like they planned. It's more likely that they'll start kissing halfway through the film and forget to move to the bedroom. Harry will lean down or Louis will lean up and their lips will meet, soft and lazy. Harry will slide his fingers through Louis' hair and Louis will make happy little murmuring noises at the back of his throat and stroke Harry's jaw with his thumb. They'll kiss for ages, until they're sleepy and sated and their lips are tender. Then maybe they'll stumble to bed with their arms anchored around each other's waists, or maybe they'll just pass out right here on the couch.

It's really not the date night they had been looking forward to.

But it's pretty perfect anyway.  
  



End file.
